HUD map analyzing State of Texas fund misallocation

There is really no other way to characterize the plan Governor Perry submitted to HUD to spend $1.7 billion in federal disaster recovery funds.

The Texas plan is to take money away from those suffering and in need to give to those not in need – reverse Robin Hood.

HUD’s research, summarized in the map presented here, makes clear that the State of Texas is trying to take money away from the communities that were devastated by the hurricane and transfer it out into far flung counties that had little, if any hurricane damage.

The counties in red and orange on the map, Galveston, Harris and Orange are left with huge funding shortfalls under Governor Perry’s plan for spending disaster recovery funds. Galveston County has 41 percent of the total unmet housing and business rebuilding needs but the Governor proposes to provide the county only 13 percent of the rebuilding funds. Orange County suffers with 13 percent of the total unmet need and gets only 3 percent from the State of Texas.

HUD is right to challenge the State’s reverse Robin Hood allocation plan.

Things did not slow down during the holidays over the shape of Hurricane Ike and Dolly rebuilding programs in Texas, but my blogging did.

This update recounts what has been happening.

The concerns we have been raising for the past two years came to a head as the State of Texas moved to request an amendment to the State’s existing plan to administer federal CDBG funds for Ike and Dolly. HUD has approved the State of Texas Round 1 plan for $1.3 billion. The State of Texas proposed an amendment to that plan to allow it to spend the remaining $1.7 billion.

I have blogged extensively on our concerns about the approach Texas is taking to disaster recovery. The problems are basically: 1) the Texas plan divides the money up regionally in a manner that diverts money from Gulf Coast counties that had hurricane damages to areas that had little to no storm damage; 2) not enough of the money is going to repairing and rebuilding people’s homes; 3) the decision to allow eighteen different government organizations to administer the program is inefficient and treats storm survivors differently across different geographical areas; 4) the housing needs of the poor are not prioritized; 5) funds are not targeted to principally benefit low and moderate income persons as required by federal law; and 6) no consideration is given to overcoming barriers to fair housing in the administration of the program.

Here is what has unfolded over recent weeks:

On October 28 Texas Appleseed and TxLIHIS filed a complaint with HUD over the State of Texas proposed plan. Our concern is that Galveston, Harris and Orange Counties were grossly underfunded in order to direct funds to counties that had little or no actual hurricane damage.

TxLIHIS also filed an extensive fair housing complaint with HUD over the Texas plan.

On November 10 HUD sent a letter to Governor Perry rejecting the state’s proposed plan for the expenditure of $1.7 billion in CDBG disaster recovery funds. Governor Perry responded with an angry letter on November 16.

HUD’s response was a detailed objection to the Texas plan for allocating the money on December 18. HUD has done their own analysis of the regional disaster recovery needs that generally reflects the Gulf Coast Interfaith research and the claims Appleseed and TxLIHIS made in our complaints to HUD.

HUD’s letter responding to Governor Perry of Dec 18 speaks for itself. HUD points out Texas has expended less that 2% of the first round money and needs to revise its regional funding allocation for Round 2. HUD’s analysis shows the massive underfunding of the counties of Galveston ($1.087 billion in unmet housing and business needs) , Harris ($731 million in unmet housing and business needs) and Orange ($340 million in unmet housing and business needs). The State’s plan took money away from these three storm devastated counties to redirect funds to counties that had little to no hurricane damages.

The basis for the overall allocation of $3 billion in disaster assistance to Texas by Congress was the formula using FEMA and SBA damage reports to calculate unmet recovery needs. This is the same methodology that HUD used in it’s December 18 letter to Governor Perry. The State of Texas chose not to use any objective damage data but to come up with it’s own weather-based model for allocating the funds regionally. The State is wrong and HUD is right.

At stake is over $1.7 billion in desperately needed assistance to Texas families to repair their homes.

People have asked me what we want from the Texas CDBG Disaster Rebuilding Plan that we have criticized and that HUD has asked the Governor to revise.

The complete answer lies in the extensive comments that we have submitted on repeated occasions to the State of Texas and in our complaints to HUD.

Here is a summary of what we want:

1. Funds to be prioritized to help Texas families rebuild their homes.
2. Both housing and infrastructure programs to principally benefit low and moderate income persons.
3. Low income people, people with disabilities, people with children and people of color to have equal access to the funds in proportion to their needs.
4. Funds allocated and programs designed to achieve fair housing opportunities for persons with disabilities, families with children and people of color by providing desegregated housing options.
5. Allocate funds geographically based on the actual rebuilding needs between regions of the state.
6. Instead of holding meaningless public hearings and asking for HUD approval before a plan is developed, tell the public what the state and local governments plan to spend the money on. Make clear who will qualify for rebuilding help and who will not. Then give citizens a chance to say whether what their government is proposing to spend money on is the right thing.

There should not be controversy over any of these requests since they are explicitly required under the federal laws that govern CDBG disaster rebuilding funds. We have been asking the State unsuccessfully to follow the law in this regard for over a year, to no avail. There is no reason for surprise that HUD has rejected a plan that fails in each regard.

We supported the Governor’s Round 2 funding plan for Hurricane Rita because it had the potential to achieve these things. We opposed the Texas Hurricane Ike/Dolly CDBG rebuilding plan because that plan would have prevented these things from happening.

HUD agreed with us.

What does the State of Texas need to do in preparing a revised plan for CDBG funded rebuilding for Hurricanes Ike and Dolly? I cannot list all the aspects of a plan here, but let me mention a few highlights.

• Step back, evaluate and design a plan to affirmatively further fair housing. This means making sure that the state and local government organizations administering the funds understand what the existing impediments to fair housing are and design programs to overcome those barriers in both the housing and infrastructure programs. This includes giving people options to move to housing near better schools, job opportunities, communities with lower crime rates and areas not subject to environmental hazards such as flooding. It also means to allocate enough of the available funds to housing programs so that desegregated housing opportunities can be created.

• Prioritize the needs of Texas families by making at a minimum of 65 percent of all the Ike/Dolly rebuilding funds available for housing repairs and rebuilding.

• Prioritize public infrastructure funds so that at least 50 percent is used to address the community development needs of low and moderate income persons.

• Design programs that reach out to and serve people with extremely low incomes, people of color and people with disabilities and institute systems to ensure that these people receive assistance in proportion to their numbers in the population of people who cannot rebuild without public assistance.

• Revise the regional allocation formula to make funds available based on actual damages that homes and businesses suffered in the hurricanes instead of allocating the money to cities and counties based on the State’s flawed “weather model”. It makes no sense to divert rebuilding funds away from communities where homes and businesses were destroyed to allocate funds to pasture land that got a lot of wind and rain. Yet, this is what the plan Texas submitted to HUD did.

• Once this is done, create a plan that tells citizens how their government agencies propose to spend the funds, who will qualify for assistance and what portion of those in need will get help. Then hold public hearings, listen to citizens and consider their concerns. Only then send the plan to HUD for approval.

In sum, all we want is for the State of Texas to follow the law.

As for what we intend to do going forward, let me be clear about that as well.

We intend to monitor the programs the state proposes and challenge spending priorities and programs that fail to comply with statutory requirements. We will enlist the aid of local organizations and citizens to assess and monitor the disaster rebuilding programs. When we see something that does not comply with the law, we will bring that matter to the attention of the responsible state officials and then to the federal government and finally pursue the problems in court if no action is taken.

I will point out that bringing these matters up the chain of responsibility has been what we always do. We did not bring our concerns about the Ike/Dolly plan to HUD until we directed extensive statements of concerns to the State of Texas that were not acted upon.

We know we cannot monitor $3 billion in spending across a large part of Texas on our own. That is why we are establishing the Texas Disaster Accountability Project.

The Texas Disaster Accountability Project website will be online in a few weeks. We will enlist citizens impacted by the disasters to ensure Texas spends the federal grant in compliance with federal law and in furtherance of the needs of disaster survivors. We will monitor whether public funds are used to further fair housing and will also ensure that public works grants the State and the local governments claim will benefit people with low and moderate incomes (LMI) actually benefit those most in need from the disaster.

If a project does not claim to benefit low and moderate income persons then it must either aid in the prevention or elimination of slums or blight, or meet other urgent community development needs because existing conditions pose a serious and immediate threat to the health and welfare of the community where other financial resources are not available. We will monitor government spending to make sure that the spending meets these standards.

Using the model established for citizen accountability in the expenditure of funds under the federal Economic Stimulus Programs at www.recovery.gov (without the PR spin), we will make available an on-line database of the details of all Texas disaster recovery CDBG grants. This will allow the public to learn about, monitor and direct their appropriate concerns about projects happening in their local communities. Through the Disaster Accountability Project, we will make public all findings of its analysis and help citizens to report any abuses of spending that they witness in their communities to appropriate state and federal government officials.

The bottom line is that we want to ensure that the national objective of helping people with low and moderate incomes, people of color and people with disabilities recover from disaster comes to fruition in Texas. The law requires that the process of recovery should further fair and affordable housing and provide community development projects to those most vulnerable to the destruction caused by disaster. The Texas Disaster Accountability Project will connect citizens, advocates and government to make sure that this objective becomes a reality.

HUD has rejected the State of Texas Plan to spend $1.7 billion in CDBG disaster recovery funds for Hurricane Dolly and Ike recovery.

In rejecting the plan HUD mirrors concerning that we have expressed over the past months.

We applaud HUD’s decision. More analysis will follow.

Read HUD’s letter to Governor Perry rejecting the Texas Plan.

The State of Texas is required to submit a plan amendment to HUD by September 30 outlining its final plan for spending the $3 billion in CDBG funds earmarked for Texas for disaster recovery from hurricanes Ike and Katrina. The state’s long road to producing this plan has been plagued by false starts and reversals.

The resulting plan is, in a word, terrible.

We at TxLIHIS as well as Texas Appleseed submitted extensive comments about the State’s “plan” to HUD. Appleseed’s and TxLIHIS’ comments can be downloaded. The HUD Secretary must now approve or disapprove the state’s plan. For the sake of the thousands of Texans who must depend on these CDBG funds to rebuild we hope he sends the State back to come up with a real and workable plan to spend the $3 billion on the Texas families who need help rather than throwing the funds into a political porkbarrel as the State’s plan proposes.

It will be tragic to delay assistance to hurricane survivors. But it would be more tragic to misspend the only funds available for rebuilding. We have been urging the State for over a year to conform the plan to federal law and Texan needs, but to no avail.

To summarize our full written comments, the proposed State of Texas Amended Plan for Disaster Recovery is inadequate and plainly inappropriate for the following reasons.

1. Fails to properly prioritize individual recovery needs over public infrastructure, economic development, etc.
2. As a consequence of allowing each COG and local government agency administering housing programs to make up their own eligibility guidelines, establish program activities and set different benefit levels, the Plan provides inconsistent and inadequate housing program benefits between geographic regions and between cities even within the same county, producing an unfair and discriminatory distribution of CDBG benefits.
3. Allocates funds geographically through a flawed model comprised of weather reports with the result that funds will not be allocated based on actual disaster damages sustained in the community.
4. Fails to make significant funds available specifically for housing repairs to owner-occupied homes — the greatest need in the wake of the hurricane disasters.
5. Fails to acknowledge the demonstrable needs for and inadequately funds rental housing repair and rebuilding due to a prejudice on the part of COGs and local governments against rental housing because rental housing predominately houses low- and moderate income persons and people of color within Hurricane Ike impacted region.
6. Does not analyze impediments to fair housing at the community level and fails to coordinate the allocation and program design of CDBG funds to promote fair housing and therefore fails to affirmatively further fair housing as required under the statute.
7. Sub-allocates CDBG funds to jurisdictions that have stated their intent to use funds in a manner to eliminate rental housing and housing affordable to lower-income households, policies that are inconsistent with fair housing and civil rights laws.
8. Funds overly expensive and inefficient local housing reconstruction programs as opposed to a much more cost effective state-administered program.
9. Fails to provide explicitly for hazard mitigation to prevent a recurrence of storm damage to homes rebuilt with CDBG funds.
10. Channels funds through institutions with track records of unreasonably slow and inefficient use of CDBG funds in the Hurricane Rita CDBG disaster recovery program.
11. Adopts a funding Plan that the State knows cannot achieve the 50 percent low- moderate-income benefit statutory objective.
12. Does not meet the minimum state planning threshold required in the statute.
13. Does not meet the standards of a plan required under the statute because the Plan is subject to and is anticipated to be changed in significant ways after HUD approval.
14. Renders public participation meaningless because the Plan was approved by state administering department governing boards prior to the end of the public participation process.
15. Provides certifications to HUD that the State knows to be inaccurate.
16. Fails to take steps to address ongoing civil rights and fair housing violations by local governmental entities that will be eligible to administer CDBG funds under the Plan.
17. Adopts a regional allocation model that fails to provide funds sufficient to equitably serve the needs of low- and moderate-income persons, persons with disabilities and ethnic and racial minorities.
18. Sub-allocates CDBG disaster recovery funds to Councils of Governments and other subrecipients knowing that some of these COGs, cities and counties have stated an intend to use funds to carry out projects unrelated to disaster recovery.

Not surprisingly the ill-conceived “weather report plan” proposed by ORCA to divide up the federal disaster recovery dollars in Texas attracted such a firestorm of opposition that Governor Perry ordered it changed today. The weather report plan allocated funds based on wind and rain rather than damages incurred and allowed ORCA staff to shift funds away from hard hit urban communities like Galveston and Houston to inland rural counties where the storm did little or no damage.

The reason ORCA tried to sell the weather report plan was to give money to rural counties that ORCA exists to serve on a day to day basis. These far-flung rural counties are the political constituency ORCA is beholden to. ORCA depends on these rural county judges to save the troubled rural agency each legislative session when moves are made to abolish or consolidate ORCA’s functions in another state agency like the Agriculture Department. In pushing the weather report plan, ORCA Ignored its responsibility as the lead agency to serve the disaster needs of all Texas. The urban government officials who actually experienced hurricane damage cried foul and the Governor reined ORCA in– sort of.

I say sort of because a quick review of the actual impact of the changes in the plan by the ever vigilant Joe Higgs of Gulf Coast Interfaith shows the plan still misallocates money. Joe likes to look at the numbers by starting with the number of houses FEMA says suffered more than $8,000 in damages and dividing them by the amount of funding the Governor is making available to the region. A fair allocation plan would provide roughly equal levels of funding between regions. But here is how Governor Perry’s new plan divides the money…

Region                                   Average allocation per damaged home
Pool of 7 regions far removed 
from major hurricane area                         $596,516
Deep East Texas                                   $258,675
Lower Rio Grande Valley                           $131,247
Southeast Texas                                    $33,372
Houston/Galveston                                  $31,091

.

It is apparent that the division of funds is radically skewed to areas where there was little hurricane damage.

What’s more this fight over the regional allocation of money was completely unnecessary if the program would have been administered in a manner pursued by most other states. This would have involved the rational assessment of needs and a centrally administered program that would have spent most of the money to help citizens rebuild. In Texas the disaster recovery program has been turned into a huge government pork-barrel program in which city, county and regional government (acting through COGs) are competing to land their share of the spoils to use on their favorite local government activity (economic development, local infrastructure, etc).

While the Governor scrambles to adjust funding levels to please the local politicians the people who lost their homes in the hurricanes are being ignored.

Based on our analysis of the available storm damage data, the State of Texas must reserve at a minimum 65 percent of the funds to help Texas homeowners and property owners rebuild and repair their homes. To fail to do so will mean many of the Texas families living in FEMA mobile homes or temporarily living in apartments will not get any of the federal funds that the State of Texas received to help them rebuild.

The Governor’s plan suggests to the local politicians that they ought to set aside a mere 50 percent of the funds for housing but allows them to spend it all on themselves and spend nothing on the victims of the hurricanes if that is what the local politicians choose.

Unlike every other state governor in the wake of every other natural disaster in recent history, Governor Perry is ducking his responsibility to ensure the federal disaster recovery funds are spent responsibly. Governor Perry appears to prefer to write a blank check for $1.3 billion to local politicians and bureaucrats to spend the federal disaster recovery money however they want. As a result, many Texans will not get the help they must have to rebuild their homes.

ORCA has proposed to allocate the remaining $1.3 billion of the $3,057,991,440 in Ike/Dolly CDBG rebuilding funds based on a model of how much wind, storm surge and rain fell in a place rather than the amount of damage the area suffered.

This is clearly wrong, a fact that most people now acknowledge.

There is another issue at stake however. How much of the available rebuilding funds should go to rebuilding housing and how much should the local governments be allowed to build infrastructure and do “economic development” projects? This critical question has received too little attention.

Governor Perry’s draft plan would suggest that the money should be split 50-50 between housing and other uses. TDHCA says the number is firm but ORCA, the lapdog of local politicians who want to spend the money for discretionary public works project rather than rebuilding the homes of storm victims, say the 50-50 split is not firm. ORCA says local politicians can decide that they don’t have any housing need and choose to put all the money into their local budgets. This is clearly outrageous but so far Governor Perry has ducked responsibility and  allowed the controversy to fester.

One of the problems here is the lack of good damage assessment numbers from FEMA. There is not a lot we can do about that at this point. Nevertheless there can be no doubt that the need for funds to rebuild housing is huge. I was reminded about this when I read Mike Snyder’s Ike one year anniversary story in the Houston Chronicle this morning. The following paragraph caught my eye…

Today, 2,180 families remain in mobile homes or other temporary housing provided by FEMA, mostly in Galveston or in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. An additional 10,595 households are participating in the federal Disaster Housing Assistance Program, which provides temporary rent subsidies for qualified families affected by Ike.

The cost of rebuilding homes for the 2,180 families in mobile homes and the 10,595 families on the rent voucher program would be $958 million at the costs per home under the TDHCA Hurricane Rita Round 2 Recovery program and $1.6 billion at the rebuilding costs the COGs incurred in Rita Round 1 and are proposing for their Ike rebuilding programs. Keep in mind there is only about $3 billion to deal with all the rebuilding efforts, housing and otherwise for damages caused by both Hurricanes Ike and Dolly.

Let’s take the lower number and assume that the COGs cut back their housing rebuilding costs to be in line with TDHCA’s. So, $958 million is needed to get people back in houses who are still out after one year. Plus, we need to rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Dolly. Let’s say that is one-quarter of the number needed for Hurricane Ike survivors. That is another $245 million.

We also need to deal with repairing the homes of people who cannot afford to do so who have not moved out of their homes. No one knows the right number. The Federal Emergency Management Agency qualified 85,245 households for its various forms of housing assistance for Ike alone, all of which require a determination that the applicant’s home was uninhabitable. Back out the 12,275 families who are still out of their home and that leaves 72,970. Let’s assume that the state decides to only help one in three of these families with repairs at a relatively low level of $15,000 per house. That is  another $365 million. Factor in another 25 percent for Hurricane Dolly survivor home repairs of  $91 million.

Then there are the rental housing needs. The Feds require Texas to spend 10.6 percent ($324 million) on that, which is way too low to restore the affordable rental housing destroyed by the hurricanes but let’s accept that as the number for the sake of argument.

Here is what you get,,,

Ike home rebuilding        $958,000,000
Ike home repairs           $365,000,000
Dolly home rebuilding      $245,000,000
Dolly home repairs          $91,000,000
Rental housing             $324,000,000
Total                    $1,983,000,000
.

$1.983 billion is 65 percent of the available $3.058 billion in federal disaster rebuilding funds

This is the bare minimum that Governor Perry should require be spent from CDBG disaster recovery funds to help Texas families rebuild their homes. But the Governor started off only requiring that 50 percent go to housing and ORXCA is trying to set it up so that local politicians can spend even less.

If this happens there will be an awful lot of Texas families who need help rebuilding who are passed over. It is not right.

Joe Higgs, organizer for Gulf Coast Interfaith, laid out clearly the problems with the proposed State of Texas plan to spend $1.3 billion in federal Hurricane Ike and Dolly CDBG rebuilding funds. His testimony was presented at the board meeting of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs on September 3, 2009.

Here is a recording I made of the Joe’s testimony and the staff response.

In his column today Houston Chronicle featured columnist Rick Casey speculates about why Governor Perry is allowing the Texas Office of Rural Community Affairs (ORCA) to so badly misallocate federal hurricane disaster rebuilding funds.

Casey correctly describes ORCA’s bizarre plan to allocate $1.3 billion in disaster recovery funds not on the basis of the damage done by the hurricanes but instead on the basis of where the rain fell hardest and the wind blew strongest. The ORCA plan shifts funds away from places where homes were destroyed to rural counties where the cows got wet.

Casey speculates as to the reason…

For example, while U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison led the state delegation to secure a total of about $3 billion in federal funds for Ike and Dolly, the governor, whom she is challenging in March’s gubernatorial primary, is in charge of distributing it.

The resulting plan looks much more like a “spread-the-wealth” plan than a plan based on actual damage.

And Perry’s base is stronger in rural East Texas than in the big cities and their suburbs.

The way the money is being distributed is also good for local politicians. It does not require them to follow federal guidelines on spending for housing, allowing them to fund more infrastructure projects.

Infrastructure projects generate more campaign contributions than hiring small firms to fix up the homes of poor folks, most of whom don’t vote.

I was among the first to complement the good job that Governor Perry did in managing the disaster rebuilding funds for Hurricane Rita. It looks like I’m going to have to get in line to point out what a poor job is being done managing the far larger rebuilding funds for Hurricanes Dolly and Ike.

You all have no idea how happy I am here. I have a very wonderful, kind, and dang-good looking husband who truly adores me. I have a daughter who is sweet, good and now a teenager. I live in a wonderful place right on the water and our rent is low. I get to bike ride while listening to my favorite music on an MP3 player. I have cable, A/C, Internet AND ice cream. What else could a girl want? I’ve had people smile because I seem so simply contented with those luxuries but I am grateful for all I have because I know what it is like to lose everything. I have been through enough to know that EVERYTHING in life is a luxury from eyesight, to being able to walk, to being able to eat, etc. You should be grateful for EVERY single thing in life because everything is a Godsend and really, there is no other way to live life than to be thankful for all you have. It is the only way to be truly happy.

Last year, I thought we had lost everything we owned in a very strong storm called Dolly, because I called my hometown from Austin, TX to ask and the police verified that yes, there was a blown-off roof at our address. I took my husband outside so I could break the news to him alone. My exact words were, “Look, I’m OK. You’re OK. The baby’s OK and we have our documents. We can start over. We started with nothing and can do it again,” and I meant it. I lived off Ramen, rice, beans and 10 lb. bags of chicken leg quarters in college and can sure as hell do it again. I could write a cookbook called “1000 Ways to Cook Chicken,” and can even modify ramen to a garlicy, saucy Italian style.

Because I can recover from tragedy doesn’t mean I want to do it again, though,  and losing the wonderful life I have discovered in the South Padre Island area does scare me. I have a horrible hurricane-phobia. I have had people tell me, “You are living in the wrong part of the world then. AHAHAHA” Well, no chit Cherlock but what is the point of having a falling rock phobia if there are no falling rocks here? It makes sense to beware of things that are a real threat and can actually hurt you like hurricanes, the swine flu, the Brown Recluse or Black Widow, people who steal or kill, and drugs and alcohol. I fear the devastation of hurricanes because of what it can do to my wonderful life here. I have finally found the man who is perfect for me and truly loves me. He is admirable, kind, adoring, funny, romantic and a great provider and protector. My daughter is still malleable, has not learned to be disrespectful or rude, and has not stepped into the web of drug and alcohol abuse that lingers in the world’s shadows. My daughter and new husband are getting along very well and there is harmony in the house. I have everything I could ever want or need in life right now. I am able to write, am able to work jobs in different areas and enjoy them, and my life is busy and more fulfilling than I could have ever imagined. I am more successful in life here and now than I have ever been.

I fear the devastation of a hurricane. An extremely active hurricane season was predicted for this year. Then the meteorologists with degrees who studied and should know what they’re doing changed their mind and said it was going to be weak because of El Nino. Like Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say, “Nevermind.” WTH? Well, now there are a few storms in the waters and I naturally get a bit uneasy. This is why…

This next photo brings to mind, “A three-hour tour, a three-hour tour. The weather started getting rough. The tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost.”

Docks and fences looked like toothpicks discarded after a filling meal.

Windows were shattered by the force of the winds and shards of glass were everywhere.

There was a lot to clean up all over the area.

Like a lady with her pantaloons showing, the Wanna Wanna’s interior was exposed for all to see.

When I went through my own personal tragedy and lost everything, I learned that there is good even in the worst situations. I recovered, regrouped and regenerated myself and am now more successful than I ever imagined. You may think it is the end of the world but even in devastation, there is good. How can a powerfully destructive storm be good you ask?

It is good for some people whose job it is to repair what has been destroyed. Like a HUGE Daddy Longlegs these trucks could be seen all down the streets.

Disaster recovery businesses set up shop at the convention center.

 Convoys of electric trucks traveled from up north to deal with what Dolly left in her wake.

The men and women who came down here had to shop in our stores, stay in our rooms and eat at our restaurants so a few places were able to make a few bucks. Some clubs and bars made money because they needed to unwind somewhere on the weekend. God is good and there is good even in horrible devastation.

Now there is a storm that is predicted to become a strong hurricane. You can track Hurricane Bill here – http://www.stormpulse.com/hurricane-bill-2009

Good news for the low income Hurricane Dolly survivors who were denied home repairs by FEMA!

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas Brownsville Division issued a ruling on August 6 in the case of La Union del Pueblo Entero v. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The Plaintiffs brought suit in response to FEMA’s denial of rehabilitation assistance to numerous low income families in the Texas Rio Grande Valley in the wake of Hurricane Dolly. FEMA inspectors denied many claims for assistance citing the substandard condition of the house before the hurricane. The plaintiffs pointed out that FEMA had never issued criteria, standards and procedures to determine by which eligibility would be determined for FEMA benefits.

FEMA’s action was especially outrageous because the agency denied government assistance to low income families simply because they were too poor to afford and to maintain a standard house.

The Court ordered that “FEMA shall issue Rules and Regulations that outline definite and ascertainable criteria, standards, and procedures for determining eligibility for relief assistance beyond which is identified by federal law in compliance with the congressional mandate found in 42 U.S.C. § 51740).”

The Court issued a preliminary injunction in the case on August 6 ordering FEMA to:

1. publish definite and ascertainable criteria, standards, and procedures for determining eligibility for relief assistance beyond which is identified by federal law in compliance with the congressional mandate found in 42 U.S.C. § 51740); and
2. reconsider Plaintiffs’ applications for housing relief assistance for damage from Hurricane Dolly, Disaster No. 1780, using the ascertainable criteria, standards, and procedures for determining eligibility for relief assistance published in compliance with paragraph 1.
3. within sixty (60) days of entry of this Order, file a proposed plan by which FEMA will comply with this Order, including what specific actions it plans and its proposed dates for completing each action.

The court also gave the plaintiffs twenty days to respond to FEMA’s proposed plan with any objections.

It has been a long time coming but it looks like justice is coming to Texas hurricane survivors at last.

We share the state auditor’s concerns in a report just released about the unacceptable length of time it takes the councils of governments (COGs) and the state agencies (ORCA and TDHCA) to deliver hurricane assistance to Texas families and communities. The state auditor’s report examined the COGs’ and state agencies’ performance in managing roughly half a billion dollars in federal disaster assistance for Hurricane Rita.

The audit correctly points out that delays getting help to Texans hurt by the hurricanes need to be addressed by both ORCA and TDHCA, especially because they will be responsible for $1.3 billion in federal funds for Hurricane Ike. But the need to resolve these delays is actually more acute than the audit suggests. Congress has since appropriated an additional $1.7 billion to Texas for Hurricane Ike rebuilding, bringing the total of additional funds available for hurricane relief to over $3 billion.

The inordinate delays experienced in the Hurricane Rita rebuilding program will be dwarfed by the delays in the six times larger Hurricane Ike program if the lessons learned in the Hurricane Rita rebuilding program are not applied. Tragically, it appears that Governor Perry will not apply those lessons to the Hurricane Ike relief effort.
The Governor’s draft plan for the new  $1.7 billion Hurricane Ike rebuilding program, released for public comment yesterday by ORCA at their Austin board meeting, will throw out the progress that has been made in setting up programs to get housing help to hurricane survivors and send the funds to local bureaucrats to once again devise new programs. It appears to us that Governor Perry is saying he does not want the responsibility and refuses to shoulder the accountability for overseeing the disaster recovery program.

Local administration of disaster funds is a good thing if there is the capacity to efficiently and effectively carry out the recovery effort. But local administration of disaster recovery funds under Hurricane Rita was frankly a failure. Local Councils of Government are only now completing the small size housing programs they were responsible for, almost three years after the storm.

The encouraging sign is that the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs at long last has put in place what appears to be an efficient and effective system to deliver housing assistance directly to Texas families who lost homes to Hurricane Rita. The development and early implementation of that program took millions of government dollars and took too long to get going but it is now in place. It appears to us and to the state auditor that the program is finally beginning to work pretty well

Governor Perry’s new plan for Hurricane Ike rebuilding will largely abandon the housing deliver system that has finally been put in place and start over from scratch, returning complete authority to the COGs to run the housing programs.

The Governor’s plan is going to be a disaster for two reasons. The Governor’s new disaster recovery plan places government’s needs ahead of Texas homeowners. First, the Governor’s plan allows associations of local bureaucrats and local politicians to decide whether to spend the money directly helping hurricane survivors repair their homes or instead spend the money themselves for local economic development and other government projects. Through this plan, the Governor has ensured that insufficient funds will be available to help Texas families wiped out by the hurricanes rebuild their homes. It is hard to believe that Governor Perry does not know the answer that he will get when he asks politicians and bureaucrats if they would like to keep money to spend themselves or give to to others who need help.

While other states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida prioritized funds for homeowners, the Texas plan allowed local bureaucrats to reduce the amount of overall funding for housing, from the first $1.3 billion of federal disaster assistance funds, below the amount set aside for government to spend. The result for the Round 1 of Hurricane Ike funds was 49% for housing and 51% for local government programs.

Rather than correcting this imbalance, Governor Perry’s new plan for the Round 2 Hurricane Ike funds would simply “suggest” that COGs make half of the funds available for housing. It will allow the COGs to reduce the amount going directly to Texas families to however little they choose.

Second, the Governor’s decision to transfer all the responsibility to the COGs will throw out the infrastructure finally in place through the state housing program to help people fast. The Governor’s new plan sends disaster assistance back to the drawing boards of the COGs, who proved to be overwhelmed and extremely slow in getting help to families whose homes were damaged by Hurricane Rita. In short, the lessons of the state auditor’s report are not being applied by the Governor to the Hurricane Ike and Dolly rebuilding programs.

The governor’s decision to rely upon the councils of governments to administer the $1.7 billion of hurricane Ike funding, even in the wake of the extremely slow performance of the COGs in getting assistance to Texas families under the much smaller Hurricane Rita program is going to produce chaos and serious delays in getting the funds to the Texas families who have been waiting too long for help.

Here is an an excellent analysis of housing vs infrastructure and economic development funding prepared by Maddie Sloan of Texas Appleseed…

1. Only 48% of the funding distributed to the COGs has been allocated for housing recovery.  If the City of Houston (which allocated 80% of its funding to housing) and the City of Galveston (which allocated 60% of its funding to housing) are excluded, only 27% of the money allocated by COGs is set aside for housing.  Both Louisiana and Mississippi allocated 70% of their Katrina related CDBG disaster recovery funding to housing.[1] Texas initially allocated only the statutory minimum of 55% of its Round 1 Rita CDBG funds to housing, but raised that percentage to 75% in Round 2, due to documented unmet need.

2. Congress mandated by statute that at least 10.6% ($139,388,960) of the State’s total allocation “shall be used for repair, rehabilitation, and reconstruction . . .of the affordable rental housing stock . . .in the impacted areas.” (PL 110-329) The State’s proposed Action Plan sets aside $58,834,914, or 4.47% of total grant funds, for an Affordable Rental Housing Stock Restoration Program; the Action Plan anticipates that the remaining 6.13% of that mandate will be met at the regional level by COG allocations, but imposes no requirements or guidance to ensure that this takes place. (PL 110-329; Action Plan at 13)   Only two subrecipients, the City of Houston and the City of Galveston, in fact set aside funds for rebuilding affordable rental housing stock.

3. The City of Galveston has allocated approximately $7,000,000 for a small rental repair program, and is the only jurisdiction to do so.  Owners of single family rentals are most likely not to rebuild, contributing to blight and further increasing the need for affordable rental housing. (cite policy link/LA program)

4. Even the homeowner programs proposed by the COGs are underfunded and not correlated with unmet need.

a. Fort Bend County estimates it will serve 38 households out of 5100 damaged owner-occupied homes.  Even if only a small percentage of those homeowners are eligible for CDBG disaster recovery assistance, the County’s ability to serve even 38 households is based on an average cost of $40,000 per home.  Costs in the Rita CDBG program averaged between $65,000 and $85,000.

b. DETCOG estimates that it will be able to serve only 99 households out of 989 with unmet housing needs (10%).

c. Cameron County and Hidalgo County both acknowledge that their levels of unmet housing need are much higher than estimated, but have allocated only enough funding to serve a small percentage of those families.  Cameron County estimates it will be able to serve 114 households out of 2,133 uninsured homes, and is assuming that only 15 of those homes will need to be reconstructed.  Hidalgo County already has a waitlist of 100 families at local non-profits, but has allocated only enough funds to serve 40 households.

Understandably, parents have a lot of concerns about their kids going on spring break. So, in the Inertia office, we end up answering a lot of the same questions repeatedly as the spring break season gears up.

Here are a couple of the most common:

Q. Where is South Padre?
A. It’s a long skinny island that runs along the coast of Texas.

Q. Is South Padre a part of Mexico or the U.S. or independent?
A. It’s a part of the U.S.

Q. Is South Padre safe, since it’s so close to Mexico?
A. We’re a full 40 minutes, one border, and several checkpoints from Mexico. So, not unlike Las Vegas, whatever is going on in Mexico, stays in Mexico.

Q. What’s the drinking age in South Padre?
A. It’s 21, like everywhere else in the States.

Q. What if I’m on a party cruise, don’t the laws change in international waters?
A. The party cruise sails around the bay between South Padre and Texas. It’s still the United States.

Q. South Padre is an island, but it doesn’t have an airport. So, do we have to take a boat there?
A. No. We’re connected to Texas by a bridge.

In addition to the tens of thousands of college students that swarm South Padre Island each spring break, the island is also invaded by folks looking to both spread the gospel through creative ministries.

Primarily, this means offering free shuttles and free pancakes to college students rolling out of the bars and clubs.

While this could be a preachy nightmare for partiers and a night of unprovoked belligerence for the “Beach Reachers,” there’s actually a fair amount of rapport. Put simply, the pancake station outside Louie’s makes for a subdued afterhours spot for folks to regroup and fill up–which spring breakers love. And for the pancake makers, it’s probably a better way to engage peers than handing out literature or carrying a giant cross down the beach.

So, if you’re looking for an alternative way to spend spring break, spreading some cheer while getting some sun, this might be the ticket. Plus, since most of the work to be done takes place at night, it frees up the day for making a giant sand Jesus.

I wanted to write a post about some datasets that encompass 2008 to put my recent discussions and future posts on climate in perspective.  First up, the World Meteorological Organization’s global temperature dataset.  In a preliminary report issued on 16 Dec, 2008’s global mean temperature was 14.3 °C, making it the 10th warmest year on record going back to 1850.  Despite a lingering La Nina, which is characterized by cooler than normal temperatures, 2008 was warmer than the 1990’s average temperature.  It was almost as warm as 1997, in the runup to the strongest El Nino on record.  It was only 0.2 °C cooler than the 1998 record temperature anomaly.  Those 10 warmest years on record?  All have occurred since 1997.

The La Nina that developed during 2007 and hung around through 2008 was easing back by the end of the year.  November was the 4th warmest all-time (land and ocean combined), as measured by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

• The November combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 1.06 degrees F (0.59 degree C) above the 20th century mean of 55.2 degrees F (12.9 degrees C).

• Separately, the November 2008 global land surface temperature was fourth warmest on record and was 2.11 degrees F (1.17 degrees C) above the 20th century mean of 42.6 degrees F (5.9 degrees C).

How much did the La Nina affect global temperatures?  According to NASA, the 2008 meteorological year (Dec 2007 – Nov 2008) was the coolest year since 2000, yet was still the 9th warmest on record (dating back to 1880).  So the coolest year since 2000 is a good thing, right?  Well, until the La Nina subsides.  2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007 were as anomalously warm as the record 1998 year, which had an extreme El Nino event.  How anomalously warm will the next El Nino year be?

More importantly, the trend in the Met Office/WMO and the NASA data continue to show a large and rapidly increasing warm anomaly.  Of particuar worry is the very large warm anomaly found over the Antarctic peninsula and eastern Russia.  The former has seen massive ice sheet calving episodes in recent years and increased ice flow toward the ocean from land as a result.  The latter has seen increasing emissions of methane as the permafrost thaws.  The former will lead to rising sea levels if trends don’t change.  The latter will release a greenhouse gas 20x as effective as CO2 is in energy absorption.  There is a lot of methane trapped in the permafrost.  Thawing the permafrost could initiate a positive feedback loop in which even more methane is released from the ground, which would warm the region and the globe even more.

The above temperature record also occurred in a period of low solar activity, which many climate change deniers claim is the most important factor driving our climate.  Most climatologists acknowledge the sun’s activity as being one input into our climate system, but also recognize that human forcing has likely become a more important climate driver.

NOAA’s 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Report details some of the noteworthy accomplishments of the season:

• Bertha was a tropical cyclone for 17 days (July 3-20), making it the longest-lived July storm on record in the Atlantic Basin.
• Fay is the only storm on record to make landfall four times in the state of Florida, and to prompt tropical storm and hurricane watches and warnings for the state’s entire coastline (at various times during its August lifespan).
• Paloma, reaching Category 4 status with top winds of 145 mph, is the second strongest November hurricane on record behind Lenny in 1999 with top winds of 155 mph).

More items of interest:

Overall, the season is tied as the fourth most active in terms of named storms (16) and major hurricanes (five), and is tied as the fifth most active in terms of hurricanes (eight) since 1944, which was the first year aircraft missions flew into tropical storms and hurricanes.

For the first time on record, six consecutive tropical cyclones (Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike) made landfall on the U.S. mainland and a record three major hurricanes (Gustav, Ike and Paloma) struck Cuba. This is also the first Atlantic season to have a major hurricane (Category 3) form in five consecutive months (July: Bertha, August: Gustav, September: Ike, October: Omar, November: Paloma).

Charles Stone, executive director of the state agency overseeing disaster relief in Texas, says decision to fund housing is not the state's but is up to local officials.

I predicted the process for allocating funds set out in the draft ORCA Hurricane Ike/Dolly Disaster Plan will result in a gross underfunding of the housing needs of hurricane survivors. Now we have proof that this is indeed a real possibility from the testimony of none other than the executive director of the state agency who is administering the disaster program.

In a public hearing on the state’s disaster recovery process last Wednesday in Orange, Texas the chairman of the Texas House Select Committee on Hurricane Ike Devastation, Representative Sylvester Turner, questioned the executive director of the Texas Office of Rural Community Affairs, Charles Stone.

Rep. Turner asked, “bottom line, are you going to fund housing?” The ORCA director said that it was up to the Council of Governments (COGs) and they would decide how to allocate Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) disaster funds according to local needs. Rep. Turner responded that he is all in favor of local input but he knows there will be many hands pulling at these funds…will there be housing? The ORCA director equivocated again stating funding decisions were the responsibility of the COGs.

Consider the track record for ORCA’s annual small cities and state CDBG program. That program operates under this same approach of letting representatives of COGs decide how to spend the money. The result: it has been years since CDBG funds have been spent by the Texas CDBG program to help Texas families with their housing needs. All of the money instead is allocated by local politicians to economic development and public works.

ORCA says it encourages the COGs to use CDBG for housing but the COGs have always refused to do so.

Governor Perry must direct that the housing needs of Texas hurricane survivors will get top priority for funding. He must not turn over his authority to organizations that have a consistent track record of failing to provide any resources for the housing needs of Texas citizens.

The American Red Cross today announced the top five disasters of 2008, based on the number of people needing shelter, food, and comfort. They are:

1. Hurricane Dolly
2. Hurricane Gustav
3. Hurricane Ike
4. Midwest Flooding
5. Indiana Tornadoes

Weather played a disastrous part in many people’s lives in 2008. A record number of tornadoes destroyed homes and memories. The worst flooding in more than a decade inundated the Midwest. Hurricanes followed each other, leaving devastation in their wake. And wildfires sparked by severe dry conditions and high winds blazed several times in the west.

The American Red Cross was there through it all.

“No matter where our help was needed, we were there,” said Joe Becker, Senior Vice President of Disaster Services for the American Red Cross, “But helping those affected by all of these disasters has been costly. We’ve spent all funds contributed for Red Cross Disaster Relief.”

The Red Cross set up almost 900 shelters; served more than 16.5 million meals and snacks; distributed close to 275,000 comfort and clean-up kits, and deployed more than 27,000 Red Cross workers to respond to these five disasters. These numbers do not include the many other disasters which struck across the country, large and small.

Earlier this year, Red Cross launched a $100 million nationwide fundraising campaign — the Campaign for Disaster Relief. As the year draws to a close, Red Cross is asking the public to remember those whose lives are changed in an instant by disaster and make a contribution to the Disaster Relief Fund, which allows us to mobilize volunteers and resources to help communities throughout the United States.

You can make a donation by visiting www.redcross.org or calling 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767). Spanish speakers can call 1-800-257-7575. You can also use your cell phone to donate $5 by text messaging the keyword “GIVE” to “2HELP” (24357). If you wish to designate your donation to a specific disaster, you should call 1-800-REDCROSS (1-800-733-2767).

“We thank all those who have supported our disaster relief efforts,” Becker said, “and ask those who have not yet made a donation to please give whatever they can to help us continue to be there with food, shelter, and comfort when disaster strikes.”

For more information on those disasters please visit the Red Cross Online Newsroom.

She says it far better than I can. We shot this interview with a woman whose home suffered major damage from Hurricane Rita. She describes the type of problems thousands of low income Texas families have encountered trying to get their homes repaired working with FEMA. [BTW - her house is still not repaired today, more than three years after the hurricane].

In yesterday’s blog entry I outlined a five-point plan for Texas to use in rehabilitating and reconstructing housing that was damaged or destroyed in Hurricanes Ike and Dolly. One of the main elements of the plan is a program to rebuild the single-family homes of low income homeowners that were destroyed in the hurricanes.

I recommended that the program designed and operated by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs that was set up to rebuild the homes destroyed by Hurricane Rita be continued with some modifications and extended to serve Hurricane Dolly and Ike survivors. I had previously posted a blog entry outlining the reasons why I believed this program should be continued, despite recent criticisms of its slow start.

One of the modifications to this existing housing repair and reconstruction program that I recommend is the establishment of a pilot program to develop better designs and construction techniques for the rapid replacement of single-family homes for low income families in the wake of natural disasters. The purpose of today’s blog entry is to outline the need for that pilot program.

The most important lesson we have learned from long-term housing recovery in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is that the housing needs of low-income disaster victims are profoundly different from those of higher income families. Disaster recovery programs are failing to provide long-term housing stability to low-income families because of the programmatic focus on temporary as opposed to permanent housing.

Over the past several months I have discussed at length problems that I see with the way FEMA attempts to assist low income households through temporary housing. FEMAs temporary housing programs do not work well for this population. FEMA is slow to provide temporary housing, the housing which it does provide has often been inadequate (as was the experience with the formaldehyde-laced travel trailers) and the cost to the government of providing temporary housing is ridiculously expensive.

What’s more, the temporary housing often becomes a dead end for lower income households because of the failure to provide programs to produce permanent housing that is affordable.

The FEMA model for household recovery is designed for households which have reasonable pre-hurricane incomes and can expect to be reimbursed for a portion of the cost of rebuilding their homes from their private insurance. This means that FEMA expects to provide temporary housing for a very short duration of time while the area recovers, the household goes back to work, applies for and receives reimbursement from homeowners insurance for housing damages and secures the necessary repairs to get back into their home. While not perfect, the FEMA model does work fairly well for households with at least a moderate income.

But Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have made it all too apparent that this model does not work for lower income households. Lower income renter households must be temporarily housed for an extended period of time while government and the private sector work out financing for the reconstruction of affordable rental housing. The federal government has modified the pre-Katrina and Rita FEMA model to provide a housing rent voucher for a period of 18 months to assist lower income renter households during this rebuilding period. This was a step in the right direction. This approach breaks down however when delays are experienced (as they frequently are) in the construction of subsidized rental housing or when state and local decisions are either slow or act to prohibit the reconstruction of that housing. I’ll discuss this problem in more detail in a future blog entry.

Today we will focus upon the plight of the low income homeowner.

FEMA attempts to assist low income homeowners through its temporary housing program which is designed to meet the needs of higher income homeowners for short-term temporary housing. This might work if other resources were available to the homeowner to allow them to quickly and effectively handle the complexity and financial burden of reconstructing and repairing their homes. But generally that is not the case.

The resources to fund the reconstruction or rehabilitation of permanent housing are not directly connected to FEMA programs. Generally speaking, these programs are funded through special congressional disaster appropriations of Community Development Block Grant funds made available to state governments. While Florida, which frequently must contend with the challenge of repairing and rebuilding homes destroyed by disasters, has established programs to rapidly provide effective housing rehabilitation and reconstruction assistance to lower income families, most states do not have established programs. Thus, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, were forced to design housing assistance programs in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In each case, this resulted in low income hurricane survivors having to spend extended periods of time in temporary housing as these programs were established.

An important lesson to be learned is that states should not wait until a disaster strikes before establishing a program to assist low income disaster victims to rebuild their homes.

It is clearly in the interest of both FEMA and state governments to cooperate to find a solution to housing low income owner occupants more quickly. If state housing repair and reconstruction programs are not deployed rapidly, low income hurricane survivors must rely on FEMA temporary housing assistance for a longer period of time and at greater cost to the federal government. FEMA’s interest in controlling the cost of temporary housing by moving low income families back into permanent housing quickly should justify better coordination and greater flexibility in the use of FEMA resources to provide permanent housing along with additional federal appropriations for the rapid and efficient deployment of state operated permanent housing programs.

Consider, for example, the cost to the government to provide a FEMA trailer for temporarily housing a hurricane survivor. Not counting the considerable logistical costs of identifying places to put the trailers, securing reviews, permits and local permission, connecting utilities, maintaining the trailers etc. the cost to FEMA of simply purchasing the trailer and its furnishings can run upwards of $50,000.

Now consider the plight of many low income hurricane survivors who own their homes. It was not uncommon, in the wake of Hurricane Rita, for such households to be living on minimum Social Security income of less than $700 a month while living in a house that had been passed down to them through the generations. Often the house had pre-existing conditions that meant it would need substantial and expensive repairs to bring it into compliance with current building codes. In a great majority of the cases the amount of money that FEMA spent temporarily housing a low income owner occupant far exceeded the value of the family’s home even before it suffered damage in the hurricane.

Few would dispute the government’s obligation to provide temporary housing assistance to a family in the wake of a natural disaster and, likewise, few would dispute the inefficiency of spending large amounts of public funds to house a family temporarily in decent housing who would soon be forced to return to a massively substandard house. Doesn’t it make more sense to devise a program to reduce the length of time a low income family must be housed in expensive temporary housing and to devote the savings to the improvement and affordability of their permanent housing?

This is the idea behind the pilot program that I have suggested.

The pilot program seeks to address the housing needs of low income households facing two different sets of circumstances. The first group are those families whose homes, while suffering minor to moderate damage, can be repaired. Many of these families simply need roof repairs and minor structural repairs to be able to reoccupy their homes. The experience in recent hurricanes however has demonstrated that these repairs do not happen quickly. Low income households often lack any available cash to contract for emergency repairs. As we observed their interaction with FEMA, which in theory could provide small amounts of cash to undertake such repairs, we learned many households were not able to access FEMA funds for these purposes.

The complicating factors included FEMA’s policy of routinely denying assistance to households because the “pre-existing condition” of the house rendered it substandard prior to the disaster. Most recently and infamously this policy was applied wholesale to the homes of low income homeowners in the Texas Rio Grande Valley whose homes suffered major damage from Hurricane Dolly. This policy is highly fiscally imprudent given the fact that FEMA must pay for temporarily housing people regardless of pre-disaster housing problems.

A second barrier to low income households ability to use small FEMA grants to obtain emergency repairs to their homes can be found in FEMA’s inability to explain, in a manner that people can understand, how to access and utilize FEMA’s emergency repair funds. It often taxes the ability of legal aid attorneys and social service professionals to deal with and understand the FEMA bureaucracy. FEMA simply has not found a way to effectively communicate with low income clients.

A third barrier to the use of FEMA emergency repair grants is the inability of low income households to successfully identify contractors, secure bids, negotiate contracts and oversee the repair work. On top of that is the difficulty of knowing exactly how to repair the house. In states like Texas, where home remodeling contractors are not licensed or regulated, low income consumers are often left to the mercy of the predatory practices of the contractors. The shortage of qualified contractors in the wake of the disaster in which their services are in great demand is a greatly exacerbating factor.

A story (at the top of this post) that will stick with me for a long time is the one I was told by an 80-year-old woman standing in the kitchen of her wrecked house in Port Arthur, Texas. She had made countless trips to the FEMA Disaster Assistance Center to talk to a FEMA official. He told her that FEMA would give her several thousand dollars to make emergency repairs provided she was able to bring him three bids for the repairs. The FEMA official offered her no help in determining the type of repairs that her home needed. She had enormous problems finding three contractors to bid on the job. After many trips back and forth to see the FEMA official he authorized her to proceed without three bids. She got a roofing contractor to put a new roof on her house. Yet the house had been blown off its foundation by the hurricane. She then spent her meager savings paying an unlicensed and unscrupulous contractor to do ineffective, cosmetic repairs to the foundation. The roofing contractor she hired and paid with funds made available by FEMA failed to install the roof in accordance with local codes. FEMA determined that she had exhausted the funds it had available to assist her for emergency repairs. Her home remained completely uninhabitable and condemned by the city.

There must be a better way.

There is a need for a way to use the excess funds that can be saved by minimizing the cost of FEMA for temporary housing as well is to capture the emergency repair funds which FEMA has available but that are not effectively being utilized. These funds can go a long way to help get low income people back into homes that only require modest amounts of repair.

Our recommendation is a program we call “Windows, Doors and Roofs”. We propose FEMA make funds available under the FEMA Individuals and Families Assistance Program to states and local governments to contract for and oversee repairs to the homes of low income families. The goal is to prevent future damage from water coming through the roofs and windows from post-disaster rains. The State of Texas and the City of Houston both sought, and were denied, the cooperation of FEMA to undertake such a program in the wake of Hurricane Ike.

Let’s turn to a solution to the problems faced by low income families who require complete reconstruction of their home.

The Stafford Act, the controlling statute for the administration of FEMA’s Individuals and Family Assistance Program, caps the maximum benefit FEMA is allowed to expend to provide temporary housing and emergency repairs to a household at $28,800. FEMA incurs additional costs in the form of the cost of acquisition of trailers for temporary housing.

As discussed earlier, the dysfunctionality of the current program is that it expends huge amounts of money for temporarily housing low income families who, at the end of the period of temporary housing assistance are simply cut off and told to fend for themselves in the wake of the failure to provide replacement housing. The solution is clearly to minimize the costs of temporary housing and to use those funds instead to rebuild homes.

With this goal in mind a number of organizations, including the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, are cooperating to develop a small pilot program to develop architectural models and construction techniques to produce a house that can be built quickly enough to take the place of the FEMA trailer as temporary housing and which can serve to provide high-quality permanent replacement housing to low income homeowners. The small pilot program of four houses is intended to be the precursor of the larger pilot program that I called for in yesterday’s blog.

Later this week I will discuss in more detail the initial pilot program which we call the Texas Grow Home project.

Today I continue the analysis begun yesterday of the draft plan developed by the Texas Office of Rural Community Affairs (ORCA) for spending $1.3 billion in federal CDBG funds set aside to help Texans recover from Hurricanes Dolly and Ike.

Yesterday I described how the ORCA plan proposed to turn over all the funds to local, self-appointed Councils of Governments (COGs) to decide how to divide the money between public works, economic development and programs that directly help Texans rebuild their homes. I discussed how transferring the decision making authority from the Governor to the COGs creates a pork barrel allocation process to the benefit of local politicians and the detriment of hurricane survivors.

I noted that this approach represents a complete abdication of responsibility and leadership by the state government and by the Governor in particular. Furthermore, it violates the federal rules for the expenditure of the CDBG disaster recovery funds.

Today we look at the ORCA plan’s proposed formula for the division of the CDBG disaster recovery funds into these eleven COG controlled pork barrels.

The ORCA plan states…

“Allocations were provided to 11 COGs that received damage under FEMA -1780 or FEMA 1791. Allocations were calculated using preliminary FEMA damage assessments as of December 1, 2008 for both individual assistance and public assistance. Adjustments may be made to future Percent of Total Damage estimates as additional funds are allocated due to the preliminary nature of the available data.”

In other words, to divide the $1.3 billion in CDBG funds between the eleven COGs ORCA simply took the requests FEMA received from hurricanes survivors for individual assistance and from local governments for public assistance received by December 1 and divided the available money based on those applications, holding back five percent of the money for administration and a whopping fifteen percent for “planning.”

The ORCA plan’s allocation is deeply flawed for at least eight reasons:

1)  The data used in the ORCA plan allocation formula is bad. The first problem is with the December 1 cutoff date for the data used in determining regional funding levels. Applications for assistance are still being received and thus needs presented after December 1 are not included for allocation purposes.

2)  The second problem is that the use of FEMA assessments greatly understates the housing rebuilding needs of low income households. There is ample evidence that FEMA assessments have systemically discounted or ignored the damage to homes of the poor. For proof consider the stories of low income families whose homes were damaged by Hurricane Dolly and who were denied assistance based on FEMA’s damage assessments. FEMA assessors systemically and illegally denied assistance to low income households whose homes were in deteriorated condition prior to the hurricanes. This systemic bias in the FEMA assessment process is the subject of a lawsuit filed in South Texas. By relying on the FEMA assessments to make geographic allocations for funds the ORCA plan denies the most needy hurricane survivors access to their share of disaster assistance.

3)  The third problem is with the nature of the requests for public assistance. There are simply no plans or cost estimates for many of the long-term public infrastructure rebuilding activities that need to take place. Current public assistance requests to FEMA are for immediate disaster recovery rather than long-term rebuilding needs. In fact, it would be inappropriate to submit most long-term rebuilding requests to FEMA since that agency focuses on short-term recovery. The funds the ORCA plan proposes to allocate are intended for long-term rebuilding assistance yet these projects are not generally captured in the current requests. Therefore, the allocation formula fails to set aside funds fairly to meet these critical long-term rebuilding projects because it bases the allocation of long-term rebuilding funds on requests for short-term emergency recovery funds.

4)  The fourth problem is that FEMA has not provided meaningful data from the individual damage assessments needed to make a funding allocation. Dr. Elizabeth Mueller (University of Texas at Austin, School of Community and Regional Planning) and I have been working for many weeks with both TDHCA and FEMA to develop estimates of housing needs of families in different income categories based on FEMA certification of household damages. The fact is that the data currently available is incomplete and unreliable. The data released by FEMA thus far does not provide the level of detail to determine whether applicants for individual assistance qualify for CDBG housing assistance. The available data permits no conclusion about the amount of damage incurred by families that fall within the CDBG eligibility limits. Thus, it does not provide information that would allow any assessment of amount of CDBG housing rebuilding funds a particular geographic region requires. There is simply no way the available FEMA data can be used to develop a fair regional allocation formula. The ORCA plan’s reliance on this data makes the allocation invalid.

5)  Fifth, there is no indication in the plan that ORCA controlled for the incomes of the homeowners. In the Hurricane Rita rebuilding program eligibility was restricted to families who were low or moderate income (defined as earning less than 80 percent of the area median adjusted for family size). Yet the ORCA allocation appears to include all damages to houses regardless of family income. This will greatly skew the allocation of funds to higher income regions by including damages to ineligible households in the ORCA allocation equation.

6)  The sixth problem is that it appears from the plan’s narrative that ORCA has included both reimbursed and non-reimbursed damages in the allocation formula. CDBG funds may only be used to reimburse for damage that is not reimbursed to the homeowner by insurance. This completely invalidates the allocation formula.

7)  The seventh problem is that the ORCA plan combines FEMA individual damage estimates with public infrastructure damage estimates giving equal weight to both. Thus, the regional formula allocates funds equally to public infrastructure damages and housing damages. Yet every previous disaster recovery program, in Texas and in every other state, has prioritized the use of funds to repair the homes of hurricane survivors. The ORCA allocation plan fails to provide fund allocation on this basis

8)  The eighth problem is the absurdly high level of funding ($197,248,528.95) set aside for “planning”. The ORCA plan does not tell us who will undertake this planning, what will be planned for, or how the planning will relate to the allocation of funds. indeed, the planning seems to have no impact on where the money goes since that decision will already be made based on the flawed data I have discussed above. Presumably this planning will also not inform or direct the program design for the COGs’ expenditure of “their” money since the ORCA plan implies that these “planning” activities will be undertaken during and after the COGs define and undertake the various public infrastructure, economic development and housing programs. In other words, this is a backwards process. The planning will take place after the decisions are already made as to how to spend the money.

The ORCA plan is a disaster in itself. As I described yesterday it does not establish priorities and establishes pork barrel spending programs for unaccountable local politicians. As we have seen today it allocates funds geographically in an unfair manner that will result in many families being denied assistance and it institutionalizes and inequitable funding distribution system.

Tomorrow I will continue the examination of the tragically flawed ORCA plan for Texas disaster recovery.

Texas’ just released plan for $1.3 billion in federal Community Development Block Grant funds for Hurricanes Dolly and Ike fails to provide the type of plan required by federal law. The plan proposes an arbitrary, pork barrel style allocation of disaster recovery funds that will leave the critical housing needs of Texas families unmet.

The good news is that the plan is so poorly conceived and presented it will doubtless be rejected by the federal government. The bad news is that this false start will delay the release of the badly needed rebuilding funds that are desperately needed to help restore the homes of Texans. It also is a distraction from the difficult choices that the Governor must ultimately make regrading how to spend the inadequate amount of disaster fund available.

The big question is what on earth are state officials thinking in putting out this plan? It represents a complete abdication of state and gubernatorial leadership in the critical recovery effort.

I will post my analysis of the plan over the course on the next few days. This is the first entry.

I was impressed with the thoughtful and responsible Hurricane Rita disaster plan that came from Governor Perry. That a document like this new Hurricane Dolly/Rita plan actually got released is a huge disappointment. There were warning signs however. I predicted that the plan would have problems when I learned the Governor had entrusted disaster recovery planning and administration to the Texas Office of Rural Community Affairs (ORCA). ORCA is a state agency so inept that it was recommended for abolition just two years ago by the state agency that assesses the effectiveness of state government.

The Texas Sunset Commission staff report on ORCA, a small agency charged with promoting the needs of rural communities found that, “ORCA lacks the leadership and focus needed to effectively serve rural Texas.”

ORCA is simply way out of its league in undertaking to plan and oversee the largest public assistance program in Texas history. According to the independent Sunset review of ORCA, the agency could not even manage to oversee efforts to aid rapidly shrinking Texas rural communities.

Sunset staff found that the agency effectively manages the two rural programs under its purview, but cannot serve the role of setting priorities and charting a clear course of action for tackling the issues facing rural Texas. …

“ORCA has not met the Legislature’s expectations to create a rural policy and provide recommendations to improve rural programs across state agencies. ORCA continues to rely on an overly-complex process for awarding rural community development grants, contributing to delays in getting funds to local communities.”

ORCA’s main role is to oversee the allocation of the annual Community Development Block Grant program for small cities and rural counties. Yet even in this modest program, that has been in place for more than twenty years, ORCA has experienced problems getting the money out the door. The Sunset review that advised abolishing ORCA cited slow CDBG expenditures in its report…

“ORCA continues to rely on a complex system for awarding regionally allocated rural CDBG funds, using multiple entities to score and approve grant applications … This structure can create delays in funding and may not make the best use of existing local resources. Sunset staff found that ORCA’s process for approving rural CDBG grants can delay funding to cities and counties by several months, and may have contributed to Texas having an unexpended balance of about $4.5 million from its 2005 HUD allocation. HUD encourages states to timely expend their CDBG funds, increasing expenditures to at least equal the annual grant amount. Typically, Texas receives its rural CDBG allocation from HUD in March, however ORCA does not award the grants until June. This can delay the start of projects by about three months, making it more difficult for recipients to expend the funds within the time provided for in their project contracts.”

Why has Governor Perry selected an agency with a track record for slow allocation of the state’s regular CDBG allocation of just $80 million to manage $1.3 billion in urgently needed CDBG disaster funds?

I would suggest two factors have led to this.

First, the lead agency for disaster recovery for Hurricane Rita, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) has been the recipient of some recent political criticism over the slow pace of the department’s ambitious, complex and, in my opinion appropriate, housing rebuilding and rehabilitation program. I’ll blog in detail about this situation in a few days.

Second, and more important, ORCA advocated a philosophy of “devolution of responsibility” down to the local government level with the Governor and ORCA retaining little responsibility for the disaster recovery program. Hurricane recovery has become the “third rail” of Texas politics.  ORCA’s devolutionary approach has some political and practical appeal, yet as we will see later, is flat out irresponsible and illegal.

I’ll first describe the proposed plan as best I can from its highly incomplete and confused rhetoric and then look at the multitude of ways the plan fails Texas hurricane survivors. [I have posted a copy of the plan here].

The plan acknowledges that the $1.3 billion in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds represent the primary source of funds available for rebuilding. The plan proposes (in tortured language) a “triangular approach” to disaster recovery through three activities: public infrastructure, economic development and housing. These three broad activities comprise all of the activities permitted under federal law. The plan notes…

“The Proposed Action Plan is being prepared considering a triangular approach to disaster recovery – public infrastructure, economic development, and housing – with each piece critical to the recovery effort. A common framework is being established that incorporates a balance of public infrastructure, economic development, and housing that can work with the other initiatives taking place of the federal and state levels.”

The “framework” and the “balance” between public infrastructure, economic development and housing are nowhere to be found in the plan.

The 22 page plan (including maps and attachments) says nothing about what the money will be spent for nor does it detail the programs that will be created to assist hurricane survivors to rebuild. The plan simply states that any activities that are permitted under federal law might be undertaken with the funds, but that no plan is yet ready. This is a problem because the plan is the only opportunity that anyone has to learn about and comment upon the state’s disaster recovery plan. The ORCA plan simply says give us the money and we will consult privately with who we choose and spend the money how we wish. That won’t cut it. This is the first of many fatal flaws in the plan. Program allocations and the program details are elements that are required to be included in the plan to gain federal approval.

The empty rhetoric of the plan offers no definitions for the types of public infrastructure, economic development and housing that will be allowable activities nor does it prioritize in any manner between these activities. Instead the plan continues in confused and opaque language to suggest that instead of the State and Governor providing leadership and setting priorities for the use of the federal funds (as explicitly required in federal statute) the Governor passes off all his responsibilities to “local communities”.  The plan states…

“The development of the Proposed Action Plan considers a locally driven process with priorities established at the local level and then working with the Office of the Governor, community leaders, advisory groups, Councils of Government (COGs), and others to maximize the funds and place funding where the highest needs exist. This approach allows for local communities to take ownership and pride in rebuilding their communities in a way that will rebuild the coastal region to a level that will not only allow them to rebound from these disasters, but to help grow Texas stronger.”

Despite the rhetoric about “communities” making decisions, the proposal actually turns over authority not to the community but to self elected boards of “Councils of Government” (COGs). This is familiar turf for ORCA. ORCA administers the annual state small cities and rural CDBG program in a similar manner. ORCA exercises no effective leadership or direction in the state’s annual CDBG program, transforming it instead into a revenue sharing program for small cities and rural counties. Each year the money is divided on a pro rated basis among the 24 COGs that cover the state and their self appointed boards which, in conjunction with regional review committees composed of the same local politicians who make up the COGs, divvy up the money among themselves.

The most extreme example of political self dealing takes place among COGs that have adopted an approach known to ORCA officials as the “Gentleman’s Agreement.” Instead of going through the process of allocating funds to the most worthy projects or to the most needy areas, funds are allocated on a revolving basis among the cities and counties to use for any projects regardless of the projects merit or the public need addressed by the project. This process allows one county to build recreational boat launching areas with CDBG funds while nearby communities of poor families live without sewer or drinking water.

The “Gentleman’s Agreement” method of allocating CDBG funds has been allowed to operate for many years by ORCA despite our calls for reform. Now that same bankrupt process is being proposed through the ORCA Dolly/Ike plan for the allocation of $1.3 billion of disaster recovery funds.  Here again is language from the ORCA plan…

“After the allocation for each COG is determined, the COG region will be responsible for allocation of funding between housing and non-housing activities based on input from the local communities. This allocation of funding will be determined by the COG using damage assessment data collected, public input, and will give special consideration to those areas impacted by storm surge and sustained wind speeds greater than 55 mph for Hurricane Ike.”

“All available funds will be allocated in this fashion with the exception of 5% for state administrative costs and 15% for planning activities. The [federal] requirement for the 10% for repair, rehabilitation, and reconstruction of affordable rental housing stock where there is demonstrated need will apply at the regional level.”

Let’s label this process what it is. The ORCA plan turns a disaster recovery program into a “pork barrel” program. Pork barrel is defined as “a government project or appropriation that yields jobs or other benefits to a specific locale and patronage opportunities to its political representative.” ORCA’s plan establishes a program that is not directed at individual assistance but instead at arbitrary transfers of money intended to help individuals into the hands of local politicians to use as they please.

Local politicians are concerned principally with spending public money for public works projects and economic development projects that benefit private business. A local politician given a choice between spending funds to undertake a public works project, an economic development project that benefits a major campaign contributor and helping a limited number of families rebuild their homes, as the plan does, which will most politicians choose? I suggest that it will not be the housing program. Politicians can defer a tax increase by funding the public works project and can curry favor with campaign contributors with the economic development project. Getting the families back into their homes offers a politician far less political payoff.

Think this is too cynical? Consider the track record for ORCA’s annual small cities and state CDBG program.  That program operates under this same approach of letting local officials decide how to spend the money. The result: it has been years since one dollar of CDBG funds have been spent under the Texas CDBG program to directly help a Texas family with their housing needs. All of the money instead is allocated by local politicians on economic development and public works.

While the ORCA plan offers no direction as to what sort of disaster assistance the COGs may undertake, it does deal with the one issue of most concern to those who want to get access to the pork barrel, namely how to regionally divide the money among the COGs.  ORCA did not take the time or make the effort to envision program to help the hurricane survivors but instead devoted the bulk of the plan on to how to divide up the money.

Yet, even in this seemly straightforward task, ORCA got it wrong.

I’ll take up this in tomorrow’s blog.

There are hopes that a structural reform and management reorganization of FEMA under the Obama Administration will solve the problems that emerged in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Dolly and Ike.  There is a lot of important work to be done with reforming FEMA but even a perfect emergency management agency won’t provide the essential ingredient for an effective federal disaster response.

Don’t get me wrong.  The agency needs better management, more efficient organization and better accountability.

But restructuring alone is not enough.  The quality of Presidential leadership is the truly defining factor that makes of breaks an effective government disaster response.  Contrast the role of President Bush who left it to “Brownie” to deal with the Katrina disaster to President Johnson’s approach to the Hurricane Betsy disaster.

Immediately after Hurricane Betsy devastated New Orleans in September 1965 President Johnson flew to the city. In the flooded Ninth Ward, Johnson visited the George Washington Elementary School, on St. Claude Avenue, which was being used as a shelter. “Most of the people inside and outside of the building were Negro,” the White House diary reads.

The diary describes the shelter as a “mass of human suffering,” with people calling out for help “in terribly emotional wails from voices of all ages. . . . It was a most pitiful sight of human and material destruction.”

Johnson was deeply moved as people approached and asked him for food and water; one woman asked Johnson for a boat so that she could look for her two sons, who had been lost in the flood.

Johnson had entered the crowded shelter in near-total darkness; there were only a couple of flashlights to lead the way. ” At first, the people in the darkened shelter did not believe that it was actually the President.” Directing the flashlights pointed at him Johnson announced to the refugees, “This is your President!. I’m here to help you!”

Johnson dispatched Secret Service agents from his protective detail to bring water to the shelter, ordered the Mayor of New Orleans who was with him to mobilize local resources and picked up the phone, called the directors of two dozen federal agencies and ordered them to drop everything to bring the resources of their agencies to bear on the problem.

The appropriate role of a President in mobilizing the resources of the federal government is illustrated in a telephone recording of a conversation between LBJ and Robert Phillips, the Director of the Government Readiness Office of the Office of Emergency Planning, the predecessor of FEMA.

Click to listen to President Johnson’s telephone conversation with Robert Phillips.

[A good place to begin fixing the problems with the Hurricane Ike recovery program would be for President Obama to have a conversation like this with the federal, state and local officials working on disaster recovery].

Recovering from Betsy was hard, slow and painful.  But the recovery did take place.

The first step today is to yank FEMA out of the Homeland Security Department bureaucracy and make it and the entire disaster response program directly accountable to the President as it used to be before the so-called 9/11 government reforms.

Effective disaster response requires Presidential leadership.

It has become abundantly clear that FEMA does not treat low-income disaster survivors right.

Consider the stories included in a lawsuit filed against FEMA in Federal District Court in Brownsville today by attorneys with Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid (TRLA). The lawsuit cites the tragic stories of eleven low-income hurricane survivor households denied assistance by FEMA.

Hurricane Dolly hit the South Texas Coast on July 23, 2008. FEMA admits that its home repair denial rate is unusually high for Hurricane Dolly. Many of the families who were denied assistance are among the poorest families in the US and live in the colonias along the Texas-Mexico border.

A FEMA official explained the high denial rate as follows: “A lot of the homes built were built from second hand materials. So the damage was, in most cases, caused from the faulty building of the house, and not the storm.”

This a curious and apparently illegal standard that FEMA is applying. It may be true that the homes of these families were not in good shape before Hurricane Dolly. But their homes were providing them shelter and as a result of the hurricane their homes are now uninhabitable.

The FEMA program is intended to help people regain a place to live. It has systemically failed low income families because of the illegal decisions by FEMA to deny assistance to these families, in essence, because of their pre-existing shelter poverty.

This is the little understood outrage of the failed federal response to disasters and it is way past time that something be done to remedy it. The legal aid lawyers have taken the matter to court. Thank God for their work. But a lawsuit will take time and may not address the core problem at FEMA.

Congress must take immediate action to fix this tragic injustice.

The lawsuit alleges that FEMA collects, maintains, and uses information concerning a category of home repair applications that FEMA labels “deferred maintenance,” but publicly available legal standards do not mention “deferred maintenance” or explain how FEMA ascertains this information or uses it in its housing repair assistance decisions.
It also claims FEMA has applied unascertainable legal standards to deny housing repair assistance to somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand low-income families in the Rio Grande Valley since Hurricane Dolly struck, roughly half of all applicants.

The lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction to compel FEMA to comply with its non-discretionary duties under 42 U.S.C. §§ 5151(a) and 5174(j) to:

(a) publicly disclose the standards that it uses to decide applications for housing repair assistance; and

(b) decide these applications in an equitable and impartial manner, without using hidden internal rules that discriminate against the poor.

The individual plaintiffs reside in Cameron and Hidalgo counties. After their primary residences were damaged by Hurricane Dolly, they applied for housing repair assistance. FEMA denied their applications, in nearly all cases due to “insufficient damage,” without telling them what legal standard was applied or what facts were relied upon to deny them assistance.

I will paraphrase the TRLA complaint as it explains what happened to a dozen low-income hurricane survivor households when they sought help from FEMA. I have redacted the families’ last names for this story to protect their privacy.

Family #1: Francisca A’s roof leaks and there is mold growing on her ceiling and walls, which will probably cost around $1500 to repair or replace, but she was denied any housing assistance benefits due to insufficient damage.

Francisca A, age 74, lives alone in Edcouch, Hidalgo County, Texas. Ms. Adame has lived in this home for over 18 years. Ms. A lives in extreme poverty. Her annual income is only $6,756, comprised of social security disability benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

Hurricane Dolly damaged Ms. A’s roof, loosening shingles and blowing some off entirely. As a result, the roof leaks when it rains. Ms. A tries to prevent damage where she can, putting out buckets to collect the water that leaks through. However, portions of the ceiling are now rotting and mold has developed on some interior walls. She has been advised that repairs will cost close to $1500. Ms. A does not have insurance or any other means to make the repairs.

A FEMA inspector came to Ms. A’s home around August 8, 2008. He was unable to communicate directly with Ms. A because he did not speak Spanish. Ms. A’s son acted as a translator. The inspector remained on the ground when he took photographs of the property even though Ms. A told the inspector she did not think it was possible for him to adequately inspect the damaged roof from the ground.

FEMA sent Ms. A a letter denying housing assistance and other assistance on August 12, 2008, listing the reason for denial as “IID-Ineligible – Insufficient Damage”.

On October 1, 2008, Ms. A appealed the denial of benefits and requested a second inspection of her home. Although she would like to obtain a written estimate of the repair costs in order to include that with a FEMA appeal, Ms. A cannot afford to pay for such an estimate. A contractor told her orally that he would charge $600 for labor, but this free estimate did not include the cost of materials. Ms. A has not received any written decision following her October 1, 2008 appeal.

On November 3, 2008, a TRLA advocate called FEMA about the appeal. A FEMA representative informed Ms. A’s advocate that assistance had been denied because the damages to Ms. A’s pre-disaster home were not caused by the disaster. Rather, FEMA claims the damages resulted from a lack of maintenance prior to the disaster.

Family #2: Alejandro A and Elizabeth A must repair or replace a leaking roof, cracked walls and ceilings, a flooded and uninhabitable bedroom, and molding carpet, but they were denied housing repair assistance due to “insufficient damage.”

Alejandro A has but one home, where he has lived for 38 years with his family. The home is located in Lozano, Cameron County, Texas. The As live in extreme poverty, with an annual income of about $20,000 to support a household of five, including Alejandro’s wife Herminia (age 57), his daughter Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s two children, ages 14 and 2. Elizabeth and her children have lived in the A home for their entire lives.

Hurricane Dolly caused structural and roofing damage to the A’ home. Dolly’s winds damaged the roof, blowing off shingles and boards creating holes in the roof and in the sides of the house through which water enters. Dolly also shook the house and caused large cracks to appear in the walls and ceiling. Water began to stream down the interior walls during Hurricane Dolly, and one of the house’s two bedrooms was flooded. Large leaks remain throughout the house whenever it rains. Pungent mold continues to grow in the house with rain and heat. The As fear for the health of their family because of the mold. To this day the mold remains in the carpet of the home.

A contractor estimated that it would cost $3,300 just to repair the As’ roof. The As do not have insurance or any other means to make the repairs.

The As applied for FEMA home repair assistance under 42 U.S.C. § 5174(c)(2). FEMA sent an inspector to the As’ home, who listened to the As’ description of the damage caused by Dolly.

FEMA sent the As a letter denying home repair assistance on August 12, 2008, listing the reason for denial as “IID-Ineligible – Insufficient Damage”.

The As appealed and provided a contractor statement. As far as they know, their appeal remains pending at this time.

Family #3: Manuel B’s roof leaked, pouring water into his kitchen, living room, dining room and laundry room, but he was denied any housing assistance benefits due to “insufficient damage.”

Manuel B, 67, and his wife, 70, have lived for about 30 years in El Charro, an informal subdivision or “colonia” located near San Juan, Texas.  Mr. B and his wife live in extreme poverty. Mr. B receives Social Security benefits of about $590 a month. His wife receives Social Security benefits of about $374 a month. They also receive Food Stamps in the amount of about $34 a month.

When Hurricane Dolly struck the Texas coast, the torrential rain from the hurricane caused severe damage to Mr. B’s roof. The weight of the rainwater on the roof caused beams and/or flashings under the roof, and/or the roof itself, to warp and buckle, so that water poured down the kitchen wall, the living room wall, part of the dining room wall and into the laundry room.

Ever since the hurricane, water has come into the house when it rains through the leaks caused when the roof buckled in Hurricane Dolly. Also, ever since the hurricane, insects enter the house through the places where Hurricane Dolly caused the house to leak. Mr. B has been spraying insecticide on the pests but this does not stop them from coming. He did not have this infestation before Dolly.

Mr. B does not have any insurance to cover the repairs he needs to make due to the damage caused by Hurricane Dolly, or any other means to make the repairs that are needed.

On or about August 6, 2008 Mr. B applied for FEMA home repair assistance under 42 U.S.C. § 5174(c)(2). FEMA sent an inspector to Mr. B’s house to inspect the damage. Mr. B told the inspector that the damage was to the roof, and offered the inspector a ladder to go up and look at the roof. The inspector declined to go up on the ladder and look at the damaged roof. She told Mr. B that she didn’t need to do that, that her camera “could do miracles” and she just took pictures from inside the house and at ground level. She did not take pictures of the part of the roof that was seriously damaged by the hurricane. She only took pictures of the areas that were not seriously damaged.

On or about August 13, FEMA sent Mr. B a letter denying housing assistance, listing the reason for denial as “IID-Ineligible – Insufficient Damage”.

In September 2008, Mr. B submitted an appeal to FEMA, together with a contractor’s estimate regarding the damage to the house and the estimated cost to repair it.

On or about November 3, 2008, a representative from Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Inc. called FEMA on Mr. B’s behalf, and spoke to a FEMA representative. The representative stated that on October 15, 2008, Mr. B’s appeal was denied, due to “deferred maintenance.” On or about November 11, 2008, FEMA sent Mr. B a letter denying his appeal and denying his request for repair assistance.

Family #4: Maria G’s roof lost shingles, destroying her daughter’s bedroom and causing water to stream into the home and mold to grow on the sheetrock and carpet, but she was denied housing repair assistance due to “insufficient damage.”

Maria G has but one home, located in San Juan, Hidalgo County, Texas. Ms. G has lived there for over twenty years with her family, which at the time Hurricane Dolly struck included her husband, Rafael, her adult daughter Belinda, and Belinda’s three children, ages 6, 4, and 11 months.

The Gs live in extreme poverty, with an annual income of about $7,800. Rafael suffered a stroke and has partial paralysis on one side of his body and impaired vision as a result.

During Hurricane Dolly, the roof of the Gs’ home was damaged. Shingles were torn off the roof by the wind, causing the roof to leak. The sheetrock in the ceiling and walls was soaked. The carpet got wet, and has begun rotting and growing mold and mildew. The bedroom where Belinda lived with her children was destroyed. Whenever it rains, water streams down the interior walls. There is a pungent odor of mold and mildew in the home.

The Gs do not have insurance or any other means to make the repairs.

The Gs applied for FEMA home repair assistance under 42 U.S.C. § 5174(c)(2). FEMA sent an inspector to the Gs’ home. The inspector did not speak Spanish, and Ms. G does not speak English, so Ms. G’s daughter Belinda translated the conversation. The inspector told Ms. G, as translated by Belinda, that the home was unsafe to continue to live in.

On or about September 2, FEMA sent Ms. G a letter denying housing assistance, listing the reason for denial as “IID-Ineligible – Insufficient Damage”.

The Gs appealed FEMA’s decision on September 24, 2008. Ms. G appealed FEMA’s decision because of the statements the FEMA inspector made about her home being unsafe to live in and the reason listed in her denial letter from FEMA are a contradiction. Ms. G provided FEMA a contactor estimate for repairs included in the appeal.

Upon receiving FEMA’s denial letter for housing assistance, Belinda and her children were forced to relocate to Iowa to because of the serious health concerns associated with constant exposure to mold and mildew in children and infants. Belinda reasoned that without financial assistance from FEMA to make necessary repairs, her mother’s home would not be safe and habitable for her young children. However, she hopes to be able to return to Texas to live with her mother, because the family relied on sharing income and expenses to make ends meet.

According to the contractor estimate Ms. G obtained, it will cost approximately $5,910.00 to make the necessary repairs to the G’s home.

On October 18, 2008, FEMA sent Ms. G a letter denying her appeal and denying her request for repair assistance.

Family #5: Jose G was denied any housing assistance benefits to repair over $7800.00 in damage to his recently refurbished, disability-accessible home, due to “insufficient damage.”

Jose G’s only home is located in Harlingen, Cameron County, Texas.
75. Mr. G is 50 years old and is quadriplegic. He and his wife Marcelina struggle to meet their needs using their annual food stamp allotment of $756 and the $7,644 of supplemental security income that Mr. G receives annually as a result of his total disability.

Prior to Hurricane Dolly, Mr. G had received assistance from a non-profit agency for various modifications that made his home more accommodating to a person with a wheelchair. Those modifications included a ramp, increasing the size of the bathroom, and widening of some of the home’s doors. The agency that assisted Mr. G with these modifications provided them for free, because he could not afford to pay for them.

Hurricane Dolly caused extensive structural and roofing damage to the G home. Dolly’s winds blew shingles off three quarters of his roof and caused it to warp. The roof then leaked, causing damage to some interior walls of the home interior walls of the home and the growth of mildew and mold.

A licensed contractor has estimated that it will cost $7,829.81 to repair the disaster-related damage.

The Gs family does not have any insurance to cover the repairs, or other means to make the repairs. Mr. G applied for FEMA home repair assistance under 42 U.S.C. § 5174(c) (2).

FEMA sent an inspector to the G home. The inspector took pictures of the home and told Mr. G that he should await a decision by FEMA. FEMA sent Mr. Gonzales a letter denying home repair assistance on August 5, 2008.

Mr. G went to the FEMA Disaster Recovery Center in Harlingen and asked a FEMA worker why he had been denied. The worker told him that his damages were not caused by the hurricane but rather were due to deferred maintenance, and that he should already be used to living in a home in these conditions.

Mr. G received a form letter with the identical language quoted in Paragraph 28 above as FEMA’s only written explanation for his denial. Mr. G submitted appeals on August 21, 2008, and on September 5, 2008, and provided a contractor statement.

FEMA denied Mr. G’s appeals on October 14, 2008.

Family #6: Agustina I’s damaged roof and sheetrock have made her daughter sick, but she was sent an unintelligible demand for documentation of her damages and has been denied housing assistance benefits.

Plaintiff Agustina I’s home is located in San Benito, Cameron County, Texas. Ms. I, 44, is a single mother and the head of a household that includes five of her 91. Ms. I supports a family of six on approximately $20,000 annually. She is a temporary worker and will take any job she can find to pay her bills. She has worked as a health care provider and in packaging frozen food. She currently is working as a roofer’s assistant.

Hurricane Dolly caused extensive damages to Ms. I’s home. Shingles came off the roof and water flowed in through the ceiling, causing sheetrock to break off the ceiling throughout the house. Additionally, at least one wall of her home has fallen down. Ms. I cannot afford to fix her home and does not have any insurance to cover the necessary repairs.

Ms. I and her five children have no other home to live in, nor any friends or relatives with whom they can stay, and are forced to remain in their damaged house. One of Ms. I’s daughters suffers from severe allergies, which have been aggravated because of the condition of the home. Her eyes are constantly watery and she is frequently sent home from school because of the severity of her reactions.

Ms. I applied for FEMA home repair assistance under 42 U.S.C. § 5174(c)(2). On August 19, 2008, FEMA sent Ms. I an award letter that did not address her request for home repair assistance and awarded her only $406.63 for damaged personal property.

Subsequently, Ms. I submitted documentation to prove that she owned her home, in an effort to obtain home repair assistance.

On October 24, 2008, FEMA sent Ms. I a letter requesting additional documentation to support her request for home repair assistance. FEMA’s request for documentation was incomplete and confusing. Quoted below is the language requesting additional documentation:

This letter confirms that we have received your correspondence requesting an appeal of our decision in your application for Housing Assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In order to evaluate your situation, we need additional documentation. …

ONE ITEMIZED ESTIMATE from a licensed contractor for disaster related
damages to the following items. (Your estimate must include a verifiable
contractor name and telephone number.)

TWO ITEMIZED ESTIMATES from licensed contractors for disaster related
damages to the following items. (Your estimates must include verifiable
contractor names and telephone numbers.)

Heating systems
(N/A)

As far as Ms. I knows, her appeal remains pending at this time.

Family #7: A tree fell on Noe and Veronica J’s home, breaking three windows and causing water damage to exposed walls and ceiling, but they were denied any housing assistance benefits due to “insufficient damage.”

Noe and Veronica J, both 68 years old, are an elderly married couple supporting their two grandchildren. The Js live in extreme poverty, with an annual income of about $11,760 to support a household of four, including themselves and their two grandchildren, ages 15 and 11.

The J’s only home is located in Edinburg, Hidalgo County, Texas. Mr. J inherited the home from his grandparents, and has lived there with his wife since 1977.

Hurricane Dolly caused damage to the J’s home. Dolly’s winds caused a tree to fall on the roof, and winds damaged the siding on one side of the house and destroyed three windows. Water entered and damaged the exposed walls and ceiling. A contractor estimated that it would cost $1,980 to repair the home. The Js do not have any insurance to cover the repairs, or other means to make the repairs.

The Js applied for FEMA home repair assistance under 42 U.S.C. § 5174(c)(2). FEMA sent an inspector to the J’s home, who listened to the J’s description of the damage caused by Dolly.

On or about August 4, FEMA sent the Js a letter denying housing assistance, listing the reason for denial as “IID-Ineligible – Insufficient Damage”.

The Js appealed and provided a contractor statement. Their appeal remains pending. They seek to fairly resolve their claim for housing assistance as promptly as possible to minimize threats to their shelter, safety, and health.

Family #8: Ernesto and Norma L saw their entire house flooded, the whole roof and a bedroom destroyed, and find their home uninhabitable due to mold, but they were denied housing repair assistance because of allegedly “insufficient damage.”

Ernesto and Norma L live in poverty, with an annual income of about $20,000 to support a household of four, including themselves and their two adult sons, Carlos and Leo. Carlos is a policeman injured in the line of duty when a teenager shot him in the head. The L’s only home is located in Harlingen, Cameron County, Texas.

Hurricane Dolly caused damage to the L’s home. Hurricane Dolly caused flooding of the entire house, and destroyed the entire roof and one of the bedrooms. Sheetrock is falling from the ceiling. There is mold growing throughout the house. The house is so damaged that the family suffered with respiratory problems and cannot live there, so they have moved into Ms. L’s mother’s home.

The Ls do not have any insurance or other means to make the repairs. The Ls applied for FEMA home repair assistance under 42 U.S.C. § 5174(c)(2).

FEMA sent an inspector to the L’s home, who listened to the L’s description of the damage caused by Dolly. The inspector asked Mr. L if he wanted to “relocate.” Mr. L thought he meant to move permanently. It was not clear that the inspector was offering rental assistance.

FEMA sent the Ls a letter denying repair assistance due to insufficient damage. The Ls appealed the FEMA denial on August 20, 2008, and made clear that they needed rental assistance because they have had to move out of the home until it is repaired.

In response to the appeal, FEMA sent a home repair grant of $100.59. A contractor estimated it will cost $15,620.00 to repair the home. The Ls appealed this amount based on the damage incurred and provided a contractor statement and pictures of the damage. Their appeal remains pending.

Family #9: Francisca P’s home was flooded with two inches of water and then with the contents of her septic tank for several days, but she was denied any housing assistance benefits due to “insufficient damage.”

Francisca P is the head of a household which includes her husband Enrique S and Ms. P’s three teenage children. The five people in Ms. P’s household struggle to meet their needs with an annual food stamp allotment of about $8300 and the approximately $7600 in supplemental security income that Mr. S receives each year as a result of his disability. He suffers from several serious ailments that cause him to be disabled including arthritis and an ulcer.

Ms. P’s only home is located in Elsa, Texas. She has lived there since 1994.

Ms. P’s home suffered extensive damage as a result of Hurricane Dolly. Roof shingles were loosened and otherwise damaged and as a result, the roof leaked. The home was flooded with about two inches of water for two or three days. Portions of the floor warped and tiles loosened. Mold and mildew developed on her windows and portions of the ceiling and walls. Plumbing problems rendered Ms. P’s bathtub and toilet unusable for over two weeks. Waste water would back up out of the toilet and bathtub because the septic tank was overflowing with rain water.

Ms. P and her husband do not have insurance to cover the repairs, or other means to make the repairs. She had to clean the restroom three times a day for two weeks with bleach and other cleaning agents because the smell was unbearable. There was waste everywhere.

Ms. P’s daughter, who suffers from asthma, had to go to the hospital because of the foul air near her home.

Ms. P applied for FEMA home repair assistance under 42 U.S.C. § 5174(c)(2).

FEMA sent an inspector to inspect her home. The inspector ignored Ms. P’s attempts to point out the disaster-related damages, walking away from her as she was speaking. He altogether neglected to inspect the bathroom with the non-functioning toilet and bathtub.

On August 12, FEMA sent Ms. P a letter denying housing assistance, listing the reason for denial as “IID-Ineligible – Insufficient Damage”.

Ms. P appealed on August 22, 2008, and provided a contractor statement, which was costly for her to obtain. Most contractors were too expensive and were charging between $200 and $250 to provide an estimate. Finally she found someone who said he would do it for a more reasonable price. A licensed contractor estimated that $6,650.00 would be needed for the
disaster-related home repairs. He charged her about $50.00 for his estimate.

Mrs. P took it upon herself to purchase a water pump and empty some of the septic tank water into her own backyard. It took two days to pump the waste out of the septic tank and into the yard. She expects rain to cause the problem to return.

FEMA denied her appeal on November 1, 2008.

Since Ms. P received her denial letter, her husband has been diagnosed with bronchitis. Other members of her family are also suffering with respiratory problems, and some are using nebulizers up to four times a day to alleviate their symptoms.

Family #10: Rosa Elia V’s roof blew off her home and landed in her yard, and her grandchildren have required emergency medical treatment for mold-related illness because of the mildew in their home, but she was denied housing repair assistance.

Rosa Elia V is the head of a household which includes her two daughters and three grandchildren, ages 5, 4, and 1. Ms. V and her family live in extreme poverty. Ms. V works and earns an annual income of about $4,800 and her daughter works and earns an annual income of $10,400. Both incomes support a household of three adults and three children.

Ms. V’s only home is located in Edinburg, Hidalgo County, Texas.

Hurricane Dolly caused extensive structural and roofing damage to the V’s home. Dolly’s winds damaged the laminate roof, blowing it off and into the yard. Her house has no laminate roof at this time. Because there is no roof, rainwater is leaking into the home and has caused damage to the walls and the ceiling. Mold is spreading throughout the house. Dolly also shook the house so that cracks appeared in the walls and ceiling.

Ms. V and her family lost personal property such as mattresses, furniture, and clothing in the home during the disaster.

Ms. V’s grandchildren have had to be taken to Edinburg Children’s Hospital emergency room several times for treatment for allergies due to the mold.

A contractor estimated that the repairs to the home will cost $5300.00 for labor and $4701.98 for materials.

Ms. V does not have insurance or other means to make the repairs. Ms. V applied for FEMA home repair assistance under 42 U.S.C. § 5174(c)(2).

FEMA sent an inspector to Ms. V’s home. The inspector did not inspect all of the damage. The inspector did not climb up to see the roof damage and did not enter the damaged parts of the home. The inspector did not speak Spanish.

FEMA sent Ms. V a letter denying home repair assistance on August 18, 2008.

Quoted below is the complete and only explanation that FEMA provided for its denial of home repair assistance:

We recognize how difficult a time this is for you and your family and we
understand that may people need help following a disaster. We are committed to providing you any help we can, including important information to begin your recovery.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and State of Texas have
carefully considered all available information regarding your request for
assistance. Our decision(s) about your request is listed below:

CATEGORIES DETERMINATION
Housing Assistance INR- Ineligible – No Relocation
Medical IID – Ineligible – Insufficient Damage
Personal Property IID – Ineligible – Insufficient Damage
================ ===========
Total Grant Amount: $0.00

INR – Ineligible – Will Not Relocate

Based on our records, you told the FEMA inspector that you were not
going to move from your damaged home while repairs are being made.
Since you do not plan to move, you are not eligible for FEMA rental
assistance at this time.

If you do need to move while repairs are being made, please contact the
FEMA helpline.

Ms. V appealed and provided a contractor statement.

FEMA sent Ms. V another letter on November 11, 2008, but it awarded her only rental assistance and did not mention decisions on any other form of FEMA assistance. She is not certain whether FEMA is still considering her application for housing repair assistance.

Family #11: Cruz Alejandro “Alex” Z’s house moved on its foundation and was rendered structurally unstable, forcing his family to move into a credit-card financed travel trailer for safety, but he was denied any housing assistance benefits due to “insufficient damage.”

Cruz Alejandro “Alex” Z is a disabled U.S. Army veteran whose only home is located in Harlingen, Cameron County, Texas. He has lived there since October 2001.

Mr. Z is the head of a household of five, which includes his wife, Leticia Z, and their three children, ages 14, 12, and 9. Mr. Z and his family live close to the poverty line. As a partially disabled U.S. Army veteran, Mr. Z receives $471 a month in U.S. Veterans Administration benefits. He also works as a computer information-technology consultant for a company called “____,” although work there is only available to him sporadically. He has earned approximately $20,000 from this work in 2008 to date.

Hurricane Dolly caused extensive structural damage to the Z’s home. The family took shelter in their house during the storm. The winds shook the house so hard that the family heard a cracking, popping noise, and felt the house move on its foundation.

Afterward, the house was so unstable that an adult stepping on the floor would cause the walls to tremble. The house was structurally stable until it moved on its foundation during the hurricane. Due to the damage from the hurricane, one wall of the house has bent inward, and there are cracks in the sheetrock of the house. Dolly’s winds also damaged the roof of the house, blowing off shingles and boards so that water entered the house and caused damage.

The Zs do not have any insurance to cover the repairs, or other means to make the repairs that are needed. On or about August 5, 2008, the Zs applied for FEMA home repair assistance under 42 U.S.C. § 5174(c)(2).

FEMA sent an inspector to the Z’s home. Mr. Z explained what happened, and tried to show the inspector the damage. The inspector was rude to the Zs and did not allow them to say anything or point out any of the damages.

On August 12, FEMA sent Mr. Z a letter denying housing assistance, listing the reason for denial as “IID-Ineligible – Insufficient Damage”.

Mr. Z and his family did not feel safe living in a house that was no longer structurally sound because the hurricane had damaged it so much that the walls trembled when a person walked on the floor. Since FEMA had denied them aid to repair the house, on or about August 22, 2008, Mr. Z and his wife bought a used, 1987 Skylark travel trailer, advertised by the seller as “Sleeps 4,” in order to have a safe place to live.

The Zs moved into the trailer, and are living there now because it is not safe for them to live in their house, due to the damage caused by the hurricane.

Because the Zs did not have the money to pay upfront for the $3,000 cost of the travel trailer, they had to use a credit card to finance the purchase. The Zs would not have spent $3,000 to buy this trailer if their house was safe to live in. The trailer that the Zs bought, which is designed as a travel trailer big enough to sleep up to 4 people, is not really large enough for a 5-member family to live in, but the Zs did not have money to buy a bigger trailer.

The five-member Z family, including the three school-age children, is now living in overcrowded conditions in this trailer, because without FEMA assistance they cannot restore their house to a condition that would be safe to live in. On top of the other expenses that the Zs have incurred because FEMA has not provided aid to repair their house, they also now have to pay $110 a month to rent a space for the travel trailer in a mobile home park.

Mr. Z appealed from FEMA’s denial, submitting his appeal by facsimile to FEMA on September 25, 2008.

Since September 25, 2008, FEMA has neither granted nor denied the appeal, or even acknowledged receiving it.

The Bahia Mar, Bahia Mar Hotel, and Bahia Mar Resort in South Padre Island, Texas accounced this last week that they will be closed until May 1 and will not open up for the infamous South Padre Island Spring Break season in March.

They seemed to really be lagging on getting on some basic repairs after hurricane dolly – while all other major spring break hotels on the Island are already open or will open soon from the very minimal amount of damage dolly caused – the Bahia Mar hasn’t done squat to repair the hole in the side of the tower. If you look close at the video I took from the street, focus on the RIGHT HAND SIDE of the building, you can see a hole in the side of Bahia Mar Hotel the size of a pickup truck that they have poly (plastic) covering.

Here’s this video:

There are several great alternative choices to the Bahia Mar if you are a college student looking for a good deal on a trip just call me I’ll help you 800 821 2176 …Inertia Chad

I like for a real cheap on beach condo the International – these condos are in a good location, and next to one of the only beach bars in South Padre …Wanna Wanna Beach Bar. These are perfect condos for those on a budget that still want to be on the Beach. Our Company has 20 units here a week…nuff said, here’s the video:

Another really solid choice that is truly a “side by side” in quality (condos are actually a bit nicer inside here in my opinion than the Bahia Mar’s units) is the Inverness Beach. This property features 1 & 2 bedroom condos, and Inertia is the only spring break tour company with guaranteed condo blocks here. This property also has the Island’s only roof top pool, and the security is really cool.

Here is the video of the outside of the Inverness Condos:

The Inverness (on a final note) has some of the bggest beach patios of any spring break condos we offer…after our 500 lb gorilla Saida Towers that is.

Saida is THE place you want to stay on spring break if you budget will allow it. Why? Perfect location. Really NICE condos inside. They are a tad more expensive. The 3 pools are heated. The place is on the beach.

I have two great videos of this property – the first one is of the pool area at Saida:

Here is another video of one of our truly superb three bedroom condos at Saida Towers…you won’t find three bedroom luxury units you can rent here anywhere BUT http://www.inertiatours.com

Don’t let the fact that the Bahia Mar won’t be open this spring break keep you from South Padre this year – I really never liked the location anyway.

All the condos I included videos on are all great alternative choices to the Bahia Mar!

Call me if you need a low down on where to stay this spring break 800.821.2176…inertia chad…OUT!

I wish I had a link to refer you to the whole story, but if you live in South Texas, you’re just going to have to scavenger for the article yourself.

Juan Casada is missing half his home. The kitchen’s caved-in roof illuminates the three-bedroom trailer and brings other damages to light. He’s lived here in far north San Juan for two years without incident, until Hurricane Dolly tattered this South Texas region known as The Delta. You can smell the mold, visible on the living room ceiling, and hear the constant drip of water on the floor.

“The floor went to total waste, along with all my kitchen appliances,” Juan said pointing to the mold-black floor. “The inspector said that my house was still livable. How? You tell me. My family is spread out, and we have been living on sandwiches for two-weeks,” he said in August after being denied assistance by FEMA.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said that the condition of his home was livable when the agency denied his application for help. The inspection report stated that Casada’s home didn’t have sufficient damage for needed assistance.

from “The homes they built and FEMA deferred” by Mary Nichols. South Texas Nation Issue #4. (Emphasis is mine)

While not at all compared to Katrina, it is unsettling that many people were turned away – “Out of 36,000 requests for FEMA’s help, nearly 23,000 have been denied. That’s about 80% of all applicants.” I don’t know about you, but it’s sickening how they’ll go around and say that the houses themselves were probably damaged before Dolly hit. That makes about as much sense as paramedics saying, “Nah, he had AIDS before he was shot. There’s no use helping him.”